Goddess
by Counter Spark
Summary: It didn't matter where Annie was- in the parlor, in her Laughing Place, six feet underground. No matter what, she was with Paul. The goddess would always be with Paul.  He realized that, eventually.


**Title: **Goddess

**Summary: **It didn't matter where Annie was- in the parlor, in her Laughing Place, six feet underground. No matter what, she was with Paul. The goddess would always be with Paul. He realized that, eventually.

**A/N: **Yep. Haven't written in any fanfic in...2 years? Lately I've been working on my original stuff (almost done with a book! Tehe!), but I finished Misery again today, and Stephen King reeeeaally gets me in a writing mood. And I wanted to do this so I did. For people that just find this, please enjoy it. For people who follow me, I might not pop up on here much, but whenever something hits me I'll usually get it down and post it. Obvs it won't be often, but I don't plan on going away completely. Smiley emoticon. :)

* * *

For the long time that he was there- the long, _long_ time- there were only a few thoughts.

The first wasn't really a thought so much as an image. There was Annie, walking down the hall beside his room. He saw her when the shades were pulled, that wide glass nakedly showing him the life that existed outside of his small room. Always walking slowly. Her gigantic, solid body squeezed into a white nurse's uniform, her throat black and baking, a gaping hole torn at her stomach. A sea of ballooning blisters. One hand-

_so vivid!_

-holding that dreaded pre-op hypo and the other a chainsaw. Not so neat and tidy this time, huh Annie? _The other foot has to go, Paul. You've been a coockadoodie brat, and cockadoodie brats don't get away from the goddess. The goddess must have both feet. Must have both thumbs. _

_Now I must rinse._

Whenever he awoke to see the shades pulled, he saw Annie coming for him and he cried. He didn't scream because he was well enough to know it wasn't real, but that didn't stop him from seeing it. Didn't stop him from desperately telling himself that he'd better start believing it was real, lest he suffer the heart-stopping fear of actually _seeing_ her enter the room with that giant, buzzing saw.

_Roing roooooing _it would go when she started it. She would get closer. _Roing roing roooooing!_

"Please keep the shades drawn," he would whimper to the nurse. Sometimes the nurse would be Annie, but thank God it was never her voice. Just her doughy, puffy face.

The other thought he constantly had while he lay in the hospital bed was that none of this was real. This was all part of the dope dream- the longest dope dream of his life. He was still on that bathroom floor, sitting against that bathroom door. Any second now she would push it open and knock him awake. His head would crack against the tile and she would be there in the doorway, kicking the rest of him out of her way and _roing roing rooooing_-ing, bearing down on him like she bore down on that trooper.

The third thought was more of a realization than a thought. It didn't just occur to him and then fade away until it occurred again. It occurred- struck him as inescapably true- and then occurred once more, always stronger and more certain. He, Paul Sheldon, was broken. Paul Sheldon had been cut up, and with his twitching foot and gray thumb Annie Wilkes had also taken a good hefty chunk of his soul.

His first wife visited every now and then, and sometimes he thought she wasn't just looking at him but through him, the way they had when they'd first met. Not with that disgusted, shocked look David had given him when he'd found him in the parlor, very much like the nurse's look every time he felt the strength or motivation to speak. _Please keep the shades drawn. _A lingering look at the stump, a hard stare at his gnarled, butchered hand. "Sure, Mr. Sheldon, you've been through a lot." Never said pleasantly, though. Always with a little note of fear.

Fear of what he'd suffered. Fear that that kind of suffering could really exist.

His first wife would stand over him, hand on his stomach. When they'd met that stomach had been flat, then rounded a bit while they were married. Happy weight, he called it. Now there was a dip there, and her pretty, manicured hand had settled down in it.

Yes, he'd thought she was looking through him when he was in those first foggy hazes, still lost in the hospital, not-as-good-as-Novril dope. But when he first spoke, first said Hello, there came that David look. That _I've just seen a dead man talk _look.

That _what are you doing? You aren't supposed to _speak _for Chrissakes! _look.

So after all it was just pity, or disgust, or fear, or something that made them leave as fast as they came because he was broken . The only thing to look forward to was Charlie, popping in and keeping him updated on the book. On _Misery's Return_. Paul wanted to know what Charlie thought of the Bourka bees, of the goddess, and Charlie said it was wonderful.

"Best book yet," he'd mutter, eyes trailing down to that empty space next to his right foot.

Yes. Misery kept him company, her in her suit of bees. Annie in her pile of ashes. The goddess, walking down the hall. _roing roing roooooing!_

"I'm glad you like it. I'm a Do-Bee alright. A cockadoodie motherfucking Do-Bee."

Then, sleep.


End file.
